Team San Carlo Honda Gresini are back in Europe this weekend for the final round of the MotoGP World Championship at Valencia.
After the heat and humidity of Malaysia one week ago, Shinya Nakano and Alex De Angelis could not have encountered more different conditions today, as rain and low temperatures made for tricky track conditions in free practice.
Nakano tried a variety of different tyres as he tried to establish a feeling with his bike in these conditions, gathering plenty of useful information for his technicians to work on.
De Angelis also worked to gather set-up data that he will work on, together with his technicians, with the aim of improving his pace tomorrow.
Shinya Nakano (10th - 1’47’’483): “The sessions this morning and this afternoon have been really difficult because of the rain and the low temperatures. I felt comfortable on the track this morning when there wasn’t too much standing water although the more it rained the less I was able to push. In the afternoon the track conditions were better although we ran out of time for the track to dry completely. We were able to put an intermediate tyre on it was a bit too hard. We went back to a softer compound but they were new and we didn’t get chance to get them up to temperature. We need to have a proper look at the data but we already have some ideas for tomorrow.”
Alex De Angelis (12th - 1’48’’085): “Even though the track was wet for both sessions and I am normally fast in these conditions, we had some problems finding traction today. The grip was low and we knew that the wet setting we’ve used in the past wouldn’t be any use at this track, where the surface is very slippery. That made it difficult to work with the tyres but we gathered a lot of information that should be useful for us to work on tomorrow. I’m confident because I like this track in both wet and dry conditions and I think we have the tools to do a good job.”
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